Glass
by TallerThanThou ShorterThanThou
Summary: The loony bin wasn't exactly the most conventional place to have a blossoming love. But conventional is one word that isn't in the aforementioned love-birds' vocabularies. Besides, who said they were love-birds?
1. Chapter 1

_Ring around a rosy_

_Pocket full of posies_

_Ashes, ashes…_

"She's unresponsive and delusional. You'll have a hard time with that one." The doctor said. A young man barely out of college nodded briskly, fed up with all the information that he didn't need. He could tell that just from looking at the small woman.

_We all fall down…_

Footsteps moved towards her, and she lifts her violet eyes up enough to see the familiar face. And then she tried to claw out his eyes. It was only thanks to the lightening fast reflexes born from many years of karate that saved the man. The doctor outside offered an anesthetic needle. Thanking the man, the graduate shoved it in his own lab coat with some disregard.

"Hello Ms. Kuchiki. I'm Ichigo Kurosaki, very pleased to see you again," the graduate said in a professional voice. The sharp violet eyes snapped up to meet his amber ones. Technically speaking, it was true even if it was only on orientation night, when he was officially introduced to all the patients suffering psychological shock.

_How dare he drip blood on the carpet? Can't he be more careful of the blood dripping from his Zanpakuto?_

"She's been having delusions ever since she met you. We think that it is because you bear some resemblance to her late husband," the doctor informed him. Nodding to show that he understood, Ichigo began to observe. Things like the patient's heartbeat, their breathing, any discoloration of the skin.

_I'm worried about you…_

Glazed eyes, Ichigo scribbled down. Cognitive ability unresponsive. Breathing, heartbeat, skin color regular. Pupils over-dilated. Slight fever accompanied by light flush of the cheeks. In other words; delusional.

Ichigo thought it was best not to mention to the inspector that the patient tried to claw his eyes out.

_We'll win against Aizen, don't worry…_

"Mr. Kurosaki, your observations please," the kindly man outside asked politely.

"Here, Mr. Aizen. Thanks for hooking me up to the job."

_Dance, Sode no Shirayuki…kill…must kill Aizen…_

"It was no problem. You did the bulk of it. Geniuses really do exist…and not all of them are short," Aizen laughed. Ichigo joined in.

"Don't let Toshiro catch you calling him short. He is in charge of a gym you know."

"Oh, he'll be fine. Ms. Momo will take care of him," Aizen said. Once again, Ichigo laughed, the door sliding shut with a click.

_Stab him Ichigo…stab him…use Getsuga Tensho…_

A/N: 0.o We're amazed…didn't know Pie could write angst so good…In case you were wondering, Rukia's thoughts are the italics. Yes, Rukia is insane. We turned the whole plotline of Bleach into her wild delusions. Don't like, don't read. We promise it will be a good ending though.


	2. Chapter 2

It was his second day here, and already, Ichigo was dreadfully bored. The stack of ever growing paperwork refused to shrink, no matter how dutifully he worked.

Stupid dad, encouraging him to follow his dreams. Karin was so lucky she didn't have to go to college. Instead, she'd been spotted at age sixteen playing at professional level at one of her soccer games. Almost immediately, she was grafted into the Karakura team.

Yawning, Ichigo meticulously filled yet another form. Was this how Toshiro felt, filling out papers for his steadily increasing onslaught of costumers? Perhaps so, but he at least had Momo Hinamori to distract him. Even Starrk, the perpetually lazy Colonel of the navy had Harribal.

The world seemed to hate him.

"Making progress?" Aizen asked in a slightly mocking tone. Ichigo snorted. He of all people should know as he had had the very same job when he had joined. Somehow, Ichigo couldn't picture the older man doing much better.

"Ten more inches to go," Ichigo replied dully. This earned a sigh of pity from the neurosurgeon.

"Just wait; some poor soul will come along, and you'll be free to ascent to the top."

Ichigo turned back to his paperwork. Well isn't this nice, a snide voice said. You're stuck here until the higher ups think of a better employment of your rather considerable talents.

Ring!

With a long suffering sigh, Ichigo picked up the phone.

"_ICHIGOOOOO! YOU MUST HAVE A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN TO CHERISH AS YOU NEVER CALL YOUR DADDY! DADDY'S SO SAD! AH! MASAKI, OUR BOY'S ALL GROWN UP AND HE DIDN'T TELL US!"_

Wincing, Ichigo rubbed his tender ears.

"Calm down, old man. I haven't got a girlfriend. And even if I did, I'd make sure she stays far away from you."

"_M-MA-MASAKI! ICHIGO'S BEING MEAN TO ISSHIN!"_

"Urgh. Dad, I'm doing paperwork. Very _important_ paperwork that needs to get done. And afterwards, I'm going out to dinner with some friends. And no, there is no change I am hooking up with any of them!" Ichigo screamed into the phone for good measure before throwing the phone back into his jacket pocket.

Stupid old man. Still, at least he knew he cared. That is, at least he knew he cared through extreme shows of affection. Now that he thought about it, Ichigo got the impression that his dad would disown him if he didn't have at least ten grandbabies.

A/N: Geez, I keep telling Pie that she can seriously be a novelist someday, but she's determined to live a quintuple life as an oncologist (she knows all the technical terms and shit), a soccer player, a volleyball player, a manga artist, a badminton player, and a tennis player. Busy schedule?

-Demon-Pixie uploading Pie's un-proofread chapter and bothering to use spellcheck! Gasp to both!


	3. Chapter 3

_Damndamndamndamndamn_

She rocked herself frantically. There was no moonlight that could seep through the barred window—what was this, a prison?—of her psychiatric ward. It was cold, but the blanket lied abandoned on the bed. The fact gave her a sick sense of pleasure. You're abandoned too, she thought to the blanket. It's not only me that's crumpled. _Not only me, damn it. _

Stupid medication. It was keeping her from her daydreams, the warped version of reality where Kaien's death wasn't as accentuated. Fucking shrinks.

"_What were you doing the day before?" _

"_Did Kaien ever beat you?" _

Well of course he didn't—did they think she was dumb as well too? What was she now; was retarded to be added to the ever growing list of mental disorders? If Kaien abused her, would she really be where she was now? _Love can do stupid things sometimes_, she mocked the nurse in her head. She hated the nurse. The one that always smiled and looked at Ichigo funny. Stupid girl. You'd think with a Doctor's in psychology, she'd realize the way the emo boy from two floors down stared at her. But apparently, psychology only extended to those in severe need of it.

_Bangbangbangbangbangbang—_

"Kuchiki, would you stop making such a racket! I have paperwork I need to finish!"

Who used racket nowadays? A racket was something you hit a tennis ball with, not something you used to describe the noisy _banging_ of someone's head against the wall. Why was she even there in the first place, shivering pathetically? Pathetic, Byakuya would say. But she'd never be sure now, as Byakuya wasn't _here_.

"Kuchiki?" The young doctor's voice was softer now. Damned Kaien look a like.

"What is it, Doctor Kurosaki? Did I cramp your ego by taking up too much space?" Sarcasm dripped from every word. She walked over to the mirror. Fifty six inches and a half of sun deprived skin stared back at her. Ugly.

"Look here, Kuchiki. I don't think your crazy, and God knows how much you probably want to get out of this hellhole."

"What do you want?" It came out ruder than she had intended.

"I want you to prove that you're _not_ crazy, therefore putting me in the line of promotion from my crappy desk job that so happens to put me in charge of you. It's a win-win situation, right?"

Rukia snorted. Fucking shrinks. They always answered questions with questions. It was damn near impossible to get anywhere with one once they got into the business. But this one seemed to possess at least a bit of sense.

"Fine."

A/N: We really _do_ want to put something nice up for Christmas, believe me, but not for this fic. It's too…angsty to do anything with that's nice that involve Rukia (for now) and really. Ichigo doesn't have a lot of Christmas spirit. Look to our other fics for specials.


	4. Chapter 4

In one of the brief interludes of peace after the dramatic show-down of death, Rukia was having a semi-decent conversation with Ichigo in the real world. Sort of.

"—and so," the doctor pressed on relentlessly, "that idiot went and tattooed his eyebrows!"

It seemed that Ichigo, true to the saying that laughter was the best medicine, was now attempting to make her laugh. Unfortunately, the six muscles needed to frown* had permanently frozen, and even slightly twitching the ten needed to smile would have caused what looked like a seizure. As needles went, the IV administered to epilepsy patients was particularly disgusting.

Ichigo paused, sensing that the midget had been far too quiet. Usually, she'd have told him how stupid his stories were or something, and here he was, offering an olive branch to the bridge of mutualism.

And then he heard it.

Alarmed, he almost reached for his pager to alert the whole hospital that there was a grizzly bear in the room. Pausing, he waited. There was nothing in the pristine room to indicate anything out of whack, but the noise had been so loud that there was no way he'd imagined it.

There it was again! Ichigo looked around the room as the growls came more and more frequently only for his eyes to land on the loudly snoring Rukia.

"Damn, midget," he cursed, trying not to laugh, "you snore like a flippin' pig!"

A/N: We have decided that this story will best be told through drabbles. Not our best work, frowney-face, but we're pressed for time here! Finals are coming up, and the culinary failure, TallerThanThou A.K.A. Pie, has been consistently failing cooking. Yeah.

*: Due to research, it has come to our attention that the least amount of muscles needed for the slightest, most half-hearted frown was six, and the least amount of muscles needed for smiling was ten. Which, of course, was not mentioned in Honors Biology 2, but perhaps could be wrangled into an extra credit project? Whatcha think? We need the points! (actually, only Demon-Pixie, who has been sleeping through it the whole year due to her squeamishness about dissecting frogs—which we never did get to—but don't tell her that.)


End file.
